Man Size

Man Size, by William MacLeod
Raine

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Title: Man Size
Author: William MacLeod Raine
Release Date: December 8, 2003 [eBook #10404]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SIZE***
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MAN-SIZE
BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
AUTHOR OF
THE BIG-TOWN ROUND UP,
OH, YOU TEX! ETC
1922

TO
CAPTAIN SIR CECIL E. DENNY, BART.
OF THE FIRST THREE HUNDRED RIDERS OF THE PLAINS
WHO CARRIED LAW INTO THE LONE LANDS
AND MADE THE SCARLET AND GOLD
A SYNONYM FOR
JUSTICE, INTEGRITY, AND INDOMITABLE PLUCK

CONTENTS
I. IN THE DANGER ZONE
II. THE AMAZON
III. ANGUS McRAE DOES HIS DUTY
IV. THE WOLFERS
V. MORSE JUMPS UP TROUBLE
VI. "SOMETHING ABOUT THESE GUYS"

VII. THE MAN IN THE SCARLET JACKET
VIII. AT SWEET WATER CREEK
IX. TOM MAKES A COLLECTION
X. A CAMP-FIRE TALE
XI. C.N. MORSE TURNS OVER A LEAF
XII. TOM DUCKS TROUBLE
XIII. THE CONSTABLE BORES THROUGH DIFFICULTIES
XIV. SCARLET-COATS IN ACTION
XV. KISSING DAY
XVI. A BUSINESS DEAL
XVII. A BOARD CREAKS
XVIII. A GUN ROARS
XIX. "D' YOU WONDER SHE HATES ME?"
XX. ONISTAH READS SIGN
XXI. ON THE FRONTIER OF DESPAIR
XXII. "MY DAMN PRETTY LI'L' HIGH-STEPPIN' SQUAW"
XXIII. A FORETASTE OF HELL
XXIV. WEST MAKES A DECISION
XXV. FOR THE WEE LAMB LOST
XXVI. A RESCUE

XXVII. APACHE STUFF
XXVIII. "IS A' WELL WI' YOU, LASS?"
XXIX. NOT GOING ALONE
XXX. "M" FOR MORSE
XXXI. THE LONG TRAIL
XXXII. A PICTURE IN A LOCKET
XXXIII. INTO THE LONE LAND
XXXIV. THE MAN-HUNTERS READ SIGN
XXXV. SNOW-BLIND
XXXVI. THE WILD BEAST LEAPS
XXXVII. NEAR THE END OF A LONG CROOKED TRAIL
XXXVIII. OVER A ROTTING TRAIL
XXXIX. A CREE RUNNER BRINGS NEWS
XL. "MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T-EN GUERRE"
XLI. SENSE AND NONSENSE
XLII. THE IMPERATIVE URGE
CHAPTER I
IN THE DANGER ZONE
She stood on the crown of the hill, silhouetted against a sky-line of
deepest blue. Already the sun was sinking in a crotch of the plains
which rolled to the horizon edge like waves of a great land sea. Its

reflected fires were in her dark, stormy eyes. Its long, slanted rays were
a spotlight for the tall, slim figure, straight as that of a boy.
The girl's gaze was fastened on a wisp of smoke rising lazily from a
hollow of the crumpled hills. That floating film told of a camp-fire of
buffalo chips. There was a little knitted frown of worry on her forehead,
for imagination could fill in details of what the coulée held: the white
canvas tops of prairie schooners, some spans of oxen grazing near, a
group of blatant, profane whiskey-smugglers from Montana, and in the
wagons a cargo of liquor to debauch the Bloods and Piegans near Fort
Whoop-Up.
Sleeping Dawn was a child of impulse. She had all youth's capacity for
passionate indignation and none of the wisdom of age which tempers
the eager desire of the hour. These whiskey-traders were ruining her
people. More than threescore Blackfeet braves had been killed within
the year in drunken brawls among themselves. The plains Indians
would sell their souls for fire-water. When the craze was on them, they
would exchange furs, buffalo robes, ponies, even their wives and
daughters for a bottle of the poison.
In the sunset glow she stood rigid and resentful, one small fist clenched,
the other fast to the barrel of the rifle she carried. The evils of the trade
came close to her. Fergus McRae still carried the gash from a knife
thrust earned in a drunken brawl. It was likely that to-morrow he would
cut the trail of the wagon wheels and again make a bee-line for liquor
and trouble. The swift blaze of revolt found expression in the stamp of
her moccasined foot.
As dusk fell over the plains, Sleeping Dawn moved forward lightly,
swiftly, toward the camp in the hollow of the hills. She had no definite
purpose except to spy the lay-out, to make sure that her fears were
justified. But through the hinterland of her consciousness rebellious
thoughts were racing. These smugglers were wholly outside the law. It
was her right to frustrate them if she could.
Noiselessly she skirted the ridge above the coulée, moving through the
bunch grass with the wary care she had learned as a child in the lodges

of the tribe.
Three men crouched on their heels in the glow